


When the Bat in the Moonlight Flies

by Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-01
Updated: 2012-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-04 15:51:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Kalderash clan had long memories even by Rom standards.  Women of the Kalderash had cursed vampires and outwitted wizards, and if they weren’t precisely friendly with the old races, they were well-versed in the legends surrounding them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Bat in the Moonlight Flies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecondSilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondSilk/gifts).



> Disclaimer: The Buffyverse was born of Joss Whedon’s imagination, and exists under a cluster of corporate umbrellas that includes (but may not be limited to) Fox, Kuzui, and Mutant Enemy. The Gargoyles universe was born of Greg Weisman’s imagination, and exists (largely in a state of frustrating neglect) under the Disney corporate umbrella. The story that follows is purely a product of its author’s imagination, and may or may not align with reality as Joss and Greg see it.

_When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, and the bat in the moonlight flies,  
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the midnight skies –  
When the footpads quail at the night-bird's wail, and black dogs bay at the moon,  
Then is the spectres' holiday – then is the ghosts' high-noon!_

– Gilbert & Sullivan, _Ruddigore_

#

Jenny was just stepping out of the Eyrie’s lobby when the rain started.  Which would have been unremarkable – except that it was raining rocks, some of them car-sized, and the storm-flashes near the top of Manhattan’s tallest skyscraper looked more like a Hollywood sci-fi firefight than they did ordinary lightning.

She had made it too far to duck back inside, so instead she leapt forward and sideways, dodging bits of falling stonework till she found a conveniently stalled car to crouch beside.  There had already been a couple of street cops on the scene, but as Jenny turned her gaze cautiously upward, an old-fashioned red car with a flasher sped up and stopped.  A dark-haired, bronze-skinned woman in plain clothes stepped out, took in the situation, and flashed a badge, shooing the inevitable rubberneckers back from the widening spray of rubble.  Then the  detective knelt, set her hand on one of the largest fragments, and breathed a question into the night.  Her voice wasn’t loud, but its owner’s police training meant that it carried, and Jenny was just near enough to hear the words:

_“What could be strong enough to leave claw marks in solid stone?”_

Jenny froze.  It was a question whose answer a junior network support tech for one of David Xanatos’ smallest and least important property management companies had no business knowing.  But what Jenny Calendar shouldn’t have known was one thing.  What Jannah of the Kalderash abruptly realized was another, and the one word she breathed was spoken too softly for anyone else to hear.

_Gargoyles_.

Parts of the story were public knowledge. The Manhattan tabloids had been obsessing for months over Xanatos’ latest project; he eccentric multi-billionaire was reconstructing an old castle atop the Eyrie, imported stone by stone from Scotland, for reasons no one quite understood.  Theories ranged from the mundane to the impossible, but the sheer audacity of the endeavor had New Yorkers fascinated.

Most New Yorkers, though, didn’t have Jenny’s Gypsy heritage, and the Kalderash clan had long memories even by Rom standards.  Women of the Kalderash had cursed vampires and outwitted wizards, and if they weren’t precisely friendly with the old races, they were well-versed in the legends surrounding them.  Jenny might have paid scant attention to the tabloid reports – and not much more to her grandmother’s long-ago lessons in folklore – but she remembered enough to know that Castle Wyvern figured in both.

And now?

Now the Kalderash arts she _had_ cultivated kicked in, the tricks of observation that took in every detail mortal eyes and ears could capture and some that took other kinds of Sight to detect.  Those arts told Jenny at a glance that the claw-marks in question were newly made.  More, they told her that the bits of stone at her own feet were a curious mixture: some clearly the crumbled remains of centuries-old craftsmanship, others sharp, bright fragments so fresh they might have been created just that night, by a creature shedding its skin for the first time in centuries.

_Gargoyles_ , Jenny breathed again.  _There are gargoyles alive in New York._

She didn’t share her insight with the police detective.  Alone and half-renegade she might be, but she was still Kalderash enough to be wary of the law on general principles, and besides, what rational Manhattanite would believe her anyway?

Developments over the next few weeks appeared to justify her reticence.  Despite a sudden spike in reports of monster sightings throughout the city, the tabloids eventually settled on an explanation involving advanced gargoyle-shaped robots and an industrial espionage scandal pitting Xanatos Enterprises against Cyberbiotics, a rival developer of high-tech military hardware.

Jenny knew better.  The Eyrie’s nineteenth floor might be far below the relocated Castle Wyvern, but for someone who worked evening shifts and kept an eye on the windows, the regular passage of winged shadows was easy enough to spot – and very few of those shadows were accompanied by the roar of rocket fuel.  More to the point, the dark-haired police detective (one Elisa Maza, according to the news reports) had become a regular visitor to the Eyrie’s lobby...and a regular passenger on the closely guarded express elevator leading to David Xanatos’ rooftop castle, even after Xanatos himself was arrested and jailed.  Something was drawing Detective Maza’s interest, and Jenny was willing to bet that it wasn’t a fleet of wannabe Transformers.

#

A few weeks later still, Jenny was alone in the office – as usual for a Monday evening – when she heard the outer door quietly open and shut.  She paused the diagnostic routine she’d been running, stood up, and stepped out of the server closet to find none other than Owen Burnett, second-in-command of Xanatos Enterprises, striding calmly into the main cubicle area.

It wasn’t that they’d met before, of course.  Arden Holdings was an extremely tiny part of the Xanatos empire, with all of fifteen employees and an extremely modest real estate portfolio.  But one couldn’t work anywhere in the Eyrie without knowing two men by sight: Xanatos himself, brash and cheerful in his $10,000 suits and neatly tied-off pony tail, and Owen Burnett, who was tall and quiet and might turn up anywhere at any time, checking on this or that component of his employer’s vast network of business interests.  His reputation among the Eyrie’s denizens was contradictory. Some found him profoundly intimidating and held that attracting his notice was tantamount to professional suicide, while others claimed he was milder-mannered than Clark Kent and – so long as one answered his questions honestly – about as dangerous as a plush bear.

Just now, Jenny’s impression tended toward the latter view.  His glasses had slid partway down his nose, and he was regarding her with a decidedly startled expression.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was still here.”

“Network tech,” Jenny told him, introducing herself.  “I do system maintenance once a week, and that’s easiest when nobody else is logged on.”

“Of course,” Burnett said calmly.  “Don’t let me interrupt you, then – unless, perhaps, you can direct me to the file I need to locate and copy.”

Jenny led him across the office to the row of cabinets under the windows.  “Lease and rental tenants are in the first three, then management accounts.  Everything should be in or—”

She froze in mid-word.  What was gliding by outside was no shadow; it was a living, breathing creature with broad gray wings, an impressively muscled body, and jet-black hair that could only be...a gargoyle.

It arced out of sight within moments, but there was no mistaking what she’d seen.  No, she corrected herself, what _they’d_ seen, as she glanced sharply sideways at Owen Burnett.  Their eyes met, and abruptly, Jenny understood why some people found him dangerous.  In the moment before their gazes had locked, his expression had briefly lost its inscrutable calm.  But he hadn’t been afraid, or shocked, or even angry – no, what Jenny had seen was a flash of _recognition_.  He’d hidden that almost instantly, and then turned a look on Jenny that could only be described as _penetrating_ , in both the emotional and physical senses.  That gaze too lasted only a few seconds, but there was no mistaking its intent.

They stood side by side, staring into the night, for several long moments.  Then Owen Burnett broke the silence.

“I’m impressed, Miss Calendar,” he said mildly.  “You seem remarkably...composed in the circumstances.”

Jenny shrugged.  “Would you rather I’d screamed and fainted dead away?  That seems so – nineteenth-century.  Sir,” she added hastily.

Burnett shrugged back.  “If the popular press is to be believed, what we saw is a dangerous monster bent on violence and destruction.  If he had noticed us....”

“If you believe the tabloids,” Jenny pointed out, pointing one thumb sharply upward, “Mr. Xanatos up there is an evil mastermind right up there with Professor Moriarty and Ming the Merciless.  Also, Elvis is alive, the Beatles were secretly Russian spies, and the world’s going to end two weeks from next Saturday.  Besides, _he_ didn’t look as if he was spoiling for a fight,” she added, emphasizing the pronoun Burnett had used.

“Touché,” said Burnett.  “Still, even the most irresponsible journalists tell the truth occasionally – sometimes as much by accident as design.  And the attacks on the Castle have been real enough,” he added, with an upward gesture of his own.  “We’ve been making repairs almost constantly for the last three months.”

“But the gargoyle we saw was heading away from the Castle,” Jenny replied.  “Hard to say which direction, though.”  _There_ , _I’ve said it.  Let’s see what he does with that._

As if responding to her thought, Owen Burnett cocked an eyebrow at her from behind his glasses.  While his voice remained outwardly amiable, his face had acquired a severe cast and his stance had gone slightly cat-like. “And how much, Miss Calendar,” he asked, “do you know about gargoyles?”

“From personal experience?  Nothing at all, sir,” she told him, “aside from what just happened.  Which is why I’d prefer to keep an open mind.”  _And there is no way I’m going to take your bait,_ she added silently, _and ask what you know about them.  Because you might just tell me, and then, as the saying goes...._ “If I ever meet one in person,” she said aloud, “I’ll be sure to let you know how things turn out.”

To Jenny’s surprise, Burnett chuckled.  “You do that, Miss Calendar,” he said, producing a business card from his pocket and handing it to her.  “In the meantime, I believe I’ve found what I was looking for.”  He opened a drawer, removed a slim folder, scanned its contents, and set it down atop the file cabinet.  “Good night.”  A moment later he was gone, his movement somehow seeming merely efficient rather than rushed.

Jenny stared after him, her own expression thoughtful.  _It might be interesting to meet a gargoyle_. _And then again, perhaps it’s time I moved on.  It is, after all, what we do._  

At the very least, she decided, she owed her uncle a letter.

# # #

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in late 1994 -- which is to say, during the first part of the first season of **Gargoyles** , and a couple of years prior to the first season of **Buffy the Vampire Slayer**.


End file.
